Though he could hear most things, he was still vaguely aware of them being muted as if someone had thrown a thick blanket over the scene.
Amal pulled him all the way up to the top of the steps, pausing for half a second before he yanked Nick forward with all his might.
They both ran together, skidding several meters until they stopped behind a double-decker bus that had been thrown on its side.
Nick’s bare feet crushed the glass beneath him, but it would take more – much more to cut him.
Amal appeared to judge the scene, but rather than his eyes darting around as he looked for a way out, Nick could feel it again as the Centauri relied on his mental senses instead.
It was like… a wave. A warm, energetic wave that spread out in every direction.
If it weren’t for its warmth, maybe Nick wouldn’t have trusted Amal when he’d come across him. And maybe Nick would now be dead.
But he’d since appreciated that Amal was firmly on his side.
“We need to make a run for it,” Amal whispered.
Nick nodded.
Amal shifted forward, his body compressed like a spring, and just as much energy locked in his muscles as he got ready to throw himself across the street to another bus that had been crumpled like aluminum foil.
But Nick stopped. Just before Amal could pull him away, Nick reached forward, locked a hand around the Centauri’s arm, and held him in place with all Nick’s growing strength.
Amal snapped his head around, his mouth opening, no doubt to ask Nick what he was doing. Then the Centauri stopped.
Nick watched and felt as desperate, gut-pounding realization pulsed through the alien.
There were eight thumps.
Eight of them. All of them far heavier than a standard Cartaxian warrior.
“Legionnaires,” Amal hissed. “We have no chance,” he added.
Something in Nick wanted to tell Amal he was wrong. But that something wasn’t his alien side – it was his human side. The same human side that saw the Nick of old throw himself into battles, even when it seemed everything was lost.
But Nick could appreciate from the shaking certainty of his voice that Amal was not making this up. They were done for.
… Images started to flash before Nick’s eyes. Fast. Growing faster with every second.
Some of them were from his childhood. Some of them… felt as if they were from a time beyond that.
He… he swore he could see a planet below him. He swore he was looking out from a massive wide porthole, down to the glistening gem of Earth below.
He swore he could feel a hand on his shoulder as he contemplated his planet from orbit.
He almost heard a whisper by his ear, too. A rushed, hurried message.
But it didn’t last.
Because the bus suddenly jerked into Amal and Nick, throwing them forward and practically landing on top of them as two legionnaires blasted it with their pulse cannons.
Just as the metal buckled and started to superheat, Nick latched a hand on Amal’s shoulder and shoved him forward, pushing him out of the way and down the steps to the tube station to their left.
“Run. Take your chances with the two Cartaxian warriors below.”
“There’s no way I’m leaving you,” Nick spat.
“You don’t know your worth, Rayar. I do, and I must protect you. So run,” Amal had the time to say.
And he stood up.
“No,” Nick screamed.
He reached for Amal. Just as three legionnaires jumped up onto the side of the overturned double-decker, just as their bodies caught the growing light of dawn.
“Run,” Amal mouthed.
Nick turned.
And the legionnaires got ready to fire.
A second before they could, they stopped.
Nick was no Centauri. He certainly couldn’t read the emotional states of minds, but even though he couldn’t see the Cartaxians’ faces, he could appreciate one thing. They stopped in fear, almost like birds seeing an eagle overhead.
“What?” Amal had the chance to stutter.
Then Nick saw it too. Something floating down, right above him.
At first it looked like nothing more than blue light, then he realized it was the form of a woman. A human woman.
Her head was directed at him.
“Peacekeeper,” one of the legionnaires spat. “You know the rules. You know the accord. Do not interrupt.”
“Peacekeeper?” Amal stuttered.
Nick may not have been traveling with Amal for long, but he could confidently say that he hadn’t yet heard this much emotion cracking through the Centauri’s voice.
It reminded Nick of one thing. A man on the edge of death finding salvation just before he could draw his last breath.
The woman continued to float down, her head still directed at Nick.
Despite the fact there were eight legionnaires around him, Nick couldn’t drag his eyes away from her. It wasn’t simply the inherent grace locked in her form as she shifted down like a vision from heaven. It was the way she couldn’t tear her eyes off him.
“Peacekeeper, you know the Accords,” one of the legionnaires spat again. What they did not do, however, was attack. They looked exactly like roosters squawking at an eagle, wondering whether they could risk trying to drive it off, or wondering whether they would end up sacrificing themselves in the attack.
Peacekeeper…?
A lot of unknown words had affected Nick, from Cartaxian to Rayar. But Peacekeeper reached even deeper. All the way in, until he saw it again – a flash of that vision. A flash of him standing in a ship just above the Earth, staring down at that glittering beauty as someone stood beside him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Peacekeeper?” His lips moved of their own accord, and the word tumbled out with all the ease of a rose dropping its petals.
The Peacekeeper landed. There was no sound, and it wasn’t simply because the Cartaxian’s sound-dampening field was still in effect. It was because gravity didn’t seem to affect this woman.
She did not take her gaze off Nick once.
“Peacekeeper,” the legionnaire growled. “You have no right to interfere.”
“He’s a Rayar,” Amal stuttered from beside Nick. “You have to protect him. It’s part of the Accords.”
“You mustn’t interfere. Do, and it will threaten your race. We will bring this to the Universal Senate,” the legionnaire roared.
“You have a greater duty to protect a Rayar. You know that. Now do it,” Amal demanded.
Nick felt as if he was standing on a precipice, and the only thing that could save him and stop him from being pushed off into oblivion was this woman.
She took a step toward him. She reached out a hand.
He didn’t take it.
She planted it against his forehead, her light covered palm driving in as the sound of the battle for London echoed out behind.
He saw it. Clear now. Clearer than ever. That vision of observing Earth from that massive portal. The solid feel of that hand on his shoulder. More than anything, the sense of anticipation and duty.
It didn’t last.
The Peacekeeper removed her hand and stepped backward.
She stared at him. Though at first it appeared that her deep eyes could hold no emotion, he swore he saw something.
In his time in the Army, Nick had come across soldiers who’d had to bury themselves under layers of emotional control. You see enough blasted-apart bodies – you see enough destroyed families – and you’ll need to start building a wall to keep yourself together.
For a second, he saw that same wall in her gaze.
The legionnaire snapped. “Don’t interfere,” he blasted once more, and he threw himself at Nick, the Cartaxian’s massive arms slicing toward Nick’s head.
But just before it could impact and crush Nick’s skull with the ease of an egg cracking against the pavement, the Peacekeeper moved.
Nick couldn’t see it –
even his advanced senses weren’t fast enough. But in the smallest unit of time, the Peacekeeper shifted, that glowing light around her form condensing into her palm until it formed a sword – one she used to slice right through the legionnaire.
Its powerful armor couldn’t do a thing. It was obliterated on impact.
The legionnaire’s armor didn’t turn to dust. It wasn’t burnt and broken up into chunks.
It simply disappeared, almost as if she’d burnt it at the atomic level, separating all of the energy trapped in each atom and somehow reabsorbing it back into her sword.
The other legionnaires backed off as one.
She faced them. Now the blue light that had once been covering her form had condensed into the sword in her hand, the wind caught her hair, sending it tumbling softly around her face. It framed her eyes. She never blinked. Even if she had, the move wouldn’t have been able to detract from the look in her gaze.
It was a look Nick had never encountered before, save for in art, save for statues from old.
When the great masters had tried to capture the look of powerful gods or heroes, they’d painted that look.
It seemed to be the perfect attainment of two states. Will and drive. The capacity to act, and the need to do so.
They came together in the Peacekeeper’s gaze as she leveled her sword between Nick and the legionnaires. “Under the accord, you can’t kill a Rayar.”
“And under the accord, you cannot intervene,” one of the legionnaires spat, but Nick fancied his voice stuttered with fear.
Nick watched as the woman flinched. It wasn’t in fear. It was with intention. Her free hand twitched, the fingers curling in, pressing hard against her palm.
He was drawn in by the move, completely captivated by it, in fact.
Again he felt as if he was standing on a cliff, and the only person who could save him was this woman. But he wasn’t standing on that cliff alone. The rest of humanity was there with him.
But just as hope could soar in his heart, she took a step back. She turned, latched a hand on Nick’s arm, and pushed up.
A split second before she lifted off into the air with all the ease of Superman, Nick grasped Amal’s wrist, and pulled him with them.
It took half a second before Nick was high above the city, staring down as the morning light lit up the streets.
Slowly he let his gaze tilt up as he locked it on the Peacekeeper. And slowly she let hers tilt down.
He stared into her eyes, and he saw it again. That emotional wall every true soldier has to build when they face horrors they can do nothing about.
But there was a difference – one key difference in her gaze.
It wasn’t that she could do nothing – it was that something was holding her back.
Nick had no idea what a Peacekeeper was, even if his alien side recognized the word.
But he could appreciate one thing. She could do what he couldn’t. She could save Planet Earth.
And he would do everything to ensure she did.
The end of Hena Day One. Hena Day Two is currently available.
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Sometimes destiny can no longer wait ….
Annie Carter is new to the future. Born 400 years in the past, she was cryogenically frozen after a serious illness, only to wake up to a new world.
One that has a plan for her.
Annie is not normal. She has an ability – one that could condemn the very universe.
People will kill to get to her.
There is one man who can keep her safe. But to get to him, she must battle her way through assassins, armies, and friends.
The stakes could not be higher, for they are everything.
I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t dead.
I’d just jumped out of a window more than 100 floors up, and I wasn’t dead.
I didn’t sail through the lines of hover traffic darting through the high towers and platforms of the city. Instead I barely fell several meters.
I landed on the back of a large transport craft.
It wasn’t moving fast; it was stuck in traffic.
The top of the vessel was large enough and rounded enough that when I struck it, I rolled down, part of the impact of my fall being absorbed until I rolled onto a flat section of the hull and stopped.
For several seconds I lay there, as still as a dead woman, staring up at the sky, mouth open but no breath capable of passing my frozen white lips.
I’d just jumped from a building.
I’d just jumped from a building.
I wasn’t permitted to lie there for long.
More visions kept assaulting me, the pain behind my left eye like a knife stabbing into the socket.
I pulled myself up, my limbs shaking, but my body still moving forward.
I stood, I stood on top of a freaking hovercraft as it moved in traffic hundreds upon hundreds of meters off the ground.
I started to see other vessels flying near, the drivers and passengers pointing at me in surprise.
The wind pounded into me. It was like standing in the sea as tidal wave after tidal wave slammed into my body.
Somehow I managed to hold myself steady.
Whoever was driving the transport I’d landed on had clearly been contacted by the other drivers, as slowly the vessel swung around and headed for the nearest port.
There were small stations dotted along the sky bridges and platforms that ran around the towers, and transports and crafts could land there to unload their goods and passengers.
My vessel moved towards the nearest one, with me still standing on top, my hair buffeting like crazy as the long slits of my tunic played around my pants.
I must have looked crazy. Or incredible. Or both.
This human woman without armor or protection standing on top of a transport vessel like she was riding a horse.
I had no time to think of that.
The vision kept playing in my mind.
As soon as the vessel docked, I moved. With a run up, I jumped. Thankfully not off the vessel and down the side of the building.
Instead, there was a small lip of metal to my left jutting out from one of the higher levels above me.
If I’d been the ordinary Anna Carter who didn’t see things, I wouldn’t have managed that jump. Fear would have locked me in place.
I wasn’t the ordinary Anna Carter anymore.
I wasn’t in control of my body.
As my mind focused on the vision playing over and over again, my limbs followed and there was nothing I could do to stop them.
My hand caught that lip of metal, and forcing my feet into the wall, I clambered until I pulled myself up and over the railing.
It led to a small platform with a ladder that reached up to one of the levels above.
I took it quickly, ascending the floor above long before I heard the worried calls from the transport below.
They would be looking for me on the roof of their vessel, but I was already long gone.
I paused just before I clambered off the ladder onto the next level of the building; I was waiting.
The vision was telling me to wait.
Soon enough I moved, and when I clambered out, no one was around.
I shouldn’t be doing this.
I paused, glancing towards the view with fear-filled white-rimmed eyes.
The huge sprawling city lay before me, every tall spire and pillar-like building catching the light.
I could not pause for long.
The vision moved me.
As it did, I regained enough control to open my lips a crack. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”
That thought echoed in my mind as I was flung myself forward in a desperate run.
End of the Excerpt. The complete Betrothe
d series is currently available.
Hena Day One Page 13